


The Ghost in the Temple

by em_gnat



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 11:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5783350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gnat/pseuds/em_gnat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Knights of Ren pursue Rey and Luke Skywalker to the First Jedi Temple, where Rey has another vision. Or sees a ghost of the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost in the Temple

Though the hall was empty, Rey felt the gentle pressure of a dozen people that she could not see clustering in around her, close enough to tease the cuffs of her sleeves. She took a careful step forward into the thick air, and it dragged at her legs, lifted the edges of her garments. The walls rippled with pale white light from a million crystals, bouncing stripes of brilliance onto the burnished stone floor and pillars.  It had her _nearly_ convinced her that she was wading into a cave filled of water.

She still didn’t know how to swim.

“Luke? Master Skywalker. _Master_ ,” she called. “We have to hurry. The Knights will be on us at any moment.”

From somewhere deep down along the bluedark corridor, she heard Luke Skywalker say softly, “No, Rey.”

Fear clotted in her throat. She tried to swallow it. “Master?”

“There’s no need to hurry any longer.”

Rey could only see Master Skywalker as an indistinct hooded shape. With so much light all around, how could he still be completely engulfed in shadow?

“Take your time,” he said. “There is much to be learned here, for both of us.”

Then he faded into the subterranean darkness.

“But-!” Her voice sounded odd coming out of her, like someone else was speaking from her mouth, and she clicked her teeth closed on her protest.

She turned in a small circle, fists clenched at her sides.

“But what am I _supposed_ to do?”

Her eyes swept back up the rough stone walls, and the aisle of perfectly smooth stone pillars that ran from floor to ceiling. Smooth and rough. Rough walls glowing, smooth pillars and floor reflecting. The light and the reflection, and the dark beyond. She reached down into her gut, dragging in a deep breath until her ribs creaked, until her shirt pinched across her chest. It was like drinking cool water. The back of her tongue tingled.

 _This is the First Jedi temple_ , She told herself, willing her eyes closed.

What was it that Master Skywalker had told her?

_Let go of your fear._

She exhaled a long breath and opened her fists at the same moment she opened her eyes.

The corridor was different.

She felt weightless now and was surprised when she moved forward with ease. The air no longer dragged at her, and gone was that uncomfortable feeling of standing in a crowded room.

But it was also _colder_ now. She crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing at her elbows. It hadn’t been this cold a moment ago, and the walls _had_ glowed, hadn’t they? They’d glowed so bright that she had felt the light passing through her skin, illuminating her like a lantern! But now, everything was a soft blue darkness, and the sound of her own footsteps rang out all along the hall.

Then something moved on the fringe of her vision.

Rey froze.

For a heartbeat, she thought she saw movement, the hem of a garment dragging along the ground. She stepped around a pillar and saw a doorway. _Had that doorway always been there?_ She had the distinct impression that there had been no doorway here a moment ago.

Then she strode through.

“Master?”

This room didn’t belong here. It was furnished, with a fine table, couch and chairs, and decorated with glass pictures and busts of dignified-looking people sculpted from rainbowed quartz. She had just walked out of the temple and into someone’s home.

Not Master Skywalker, but a woman stood with her back to Rey on the opposite side of the room, lit by an opening in the ceiling that allowed a sheet of light to fall through the air and illuminate a perfect circle on the ground before her.

As Rey entered the chamber, the woman inclined her head slightly and turned toward the sound of her footsteps. She looked at Rey with fierce amber eyes and Rey noted that she had a sharp jawline and a single dark freckle on her left cheek. Though she was certainly the most beautiful person Rey had ever seen, what Rey felt in that moment was more than awe or admiration. Rey felt, though she didn’t know why, that she _knew_ this woman.

A name formed in Rey’s head, and a low voice that belonged to no one whispered, _Padm_ _é_ _._

The woman’s neutral expression suddenly transformed, eyes softening and filling with a warmth that Rey had always wanted to feel but never had.

No, that wasn’t _entirely_ true. She’d known something like it when General Organa had held her. She’d felt it with Finn, too, but it seemed like years had passed since then.

The woman opened her arms and glided toward her through the pillar of light. She shimmered blue, transforming into a being of bright energy, as vibrant as the blade of Rey’s lightsaber.

Rey was struck all at once with an anguish of emotion. It surged up from within her like a sob, and the cry trembled, unuttered behind her lips. On impulse, she rushed forward to answer the beautiful woman’s wide open arms with an embrace of her own, and realized that what she felt was _love_. She _loved_ this small, firm-jawed woman. She felt that love so intensely that she could not imagine feeling anything else.

Rey’s arms closed around her.

Closed on _nothing._

She was glittering vapor, as insubstantial as a hologram, and stepped right through Rey, dragging all the love that Rey had felt with her. It was as if all that good that was in Rey had been pulled out by the woman’s passing.

A shudder of breath rattled in Rey’s chest. She clutched her arms across her pounding heart, and spun to face the ghost.

Behind her, the glowing apparition wrapped her arms around a tall, black-clad figure. The cloaked figured laid a gloved hand against the freckled cheek, and curved down to kiss the woman beneath the drape of a dark hood. Slowly they drew apart, and when they did the woman continued to peer up and under the hood with an expression of unmasked affection.

Rey took a step forward. “Who are you?” Her voice shook.

The woman did not look at her.

The hooded figure did.

Rey saw the flinty gleam of eyes within the shadow of hood and nothing more.

“Who are you? _Tell me!_ ”

“Rey.”

The sound of Master Skywalker’s voice jolted her backward. She flung up her hands to defend herself, wheeling back until she slammed flat into a pillar, her knees shaking. She blinked hard, over and over again, and saw only Master Skywalker standing before her in his brown cloak. The furnished room was gone, leaving them in the desolate gallery. The woman was nowhere to be seen and neither was the black-clad man.

“Are you alright, Rey?”

“No. I mean, _Yes_. Yes, I’m alright. But I saw-” She gestured at nothing, just light and darkness.

Master Skywalker regarded her solemnly, unspeaking, until the words died on her tongue.

“We have to go,” he said softly into her silence.

“What do you mean?” She couldn’t quite catch her breath. “We only just got here. You said we should take our time.”

“The Knights of Ren are outside the temple now. We must go and greet them.”

Rey’s breath stilled. “They’re here? Now?”

“Quiet your mind and you will sense them.”

Her hand went to the lightsaber at her belt. “I’m ready to fight them. You and I can handle them together, I’m sure of it.”

The Master shook his head so slightly that the gesture could have been mistaken for a whisp of air ruffling his hood.

“Leave your lightsaber at your side. It will not be needed today.”

“But Master, we have to defend the temple! We can’t just let them in.”

“Come along, Rey.”

“Master Skywalker, we _can’t_ let them in!”

He was already walking away from her.

“Master Skywalker? _Luke!_ ”

She watched him for a moment, swathed in his cloak. In the dim light of the temple, the fabric looked black, not brown. She hesitated and glanced over her shoulder. A perfect beam of white light shone down through the ceiling and onto the temple floor, but this time, there was no one standing on the other side.

Rey turned and followed the Jedi from the temple and out into the rain.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I really want Padmé to appear as a Force-ghost to Rey in future episodes of Star Wars and so I'm drawing some lines between my two favorite ladies.


End file.
